Structure: Should an eCommerce blog have main menu links to each of the store category pages?
-
Hi,
Should my eCommerce site's blog have menu links to the store's category pages? (like in the store itself)
The meaning is that every blog post page will have links to category pages that are not related and probably weakens the in-text relevant links.
The other option is to have menu links only to the blog category pages and in-article links to the relevant store category pages (maybe add menu button "Go to Store").
Thanks
-
Hello BeytzNet,
When people, including Matt Cutts, explain how the flow of pagerank works they tend to do it in simplistic terms to avoid confusing the situation, and to make sure that everyone understands the fundamental concepts.
Yes, at a fundamental level, the more links on a page the less pagerank flows through each of those links. However, it is quite a bit more complicated than this. Navigation links are treated differently than in-copy links. Footer links are treated differently than those at the top of the page. Sitewide links are treated differently than single links, etc...
When looked at this way, you can see how a link from within the body of a post is going to probably flow much more pagerank than one of the site-wide navigation links at the top of the page.
I agree with Maximillian that you should think about the best experience for your users. Here's an idea if you don't mind creating a totally separate page template and navigation...
Just show the top-level category page navigation on the blog instead of the complete drop-down list to sub-categories. This will drastically reduce the amount of links on the page while keeping the visual user-experience much the same for continuity and convenience. You can put the blog navigation in the sidebar.
That said, there really is nothing "wrong" with changing the look and feel of the blog from the main site if that is what you want to do. Just think about the visitor who has five items in their shopping cart already and decides to click on a link to a blog post, which then feels like a totally different website.
-
Thanks for the explanation and examples.
Keeping the same look and feel does make perfect sense.However, Overstock is actually a good point, they have dozens of "menu links" on the blog which disburse the link juice of the in-article links to practically nothing (being divided between so many pages).
When you look on a specific post inside TripAdvisror each link has a meaning, has power.
Don't you think Overstock is killing the power of the blog posts?
Thanks
-
I don't think there is really a right or wrong answer to this and I think you should be tackling it from a user experience angle, as opposed to an SEO one. It's generally thought of that links in the main navigation are there for a good reason, and shouldn't have an adverse on duplicate/diluting content. (within reason)
Do you think your customers would prefer the ease of navigation that keeping the same linking architecture consistent through out the site would bring? I know as a user I would, so that is how I implement it when adding blogs to eCommerce site whenever possible.
Say you had an article about Wool Socks. Your user might see the Wool Site menu link in the main navigation and might expect another dropdown so they can easily check the different types of wool socks without loading another page. I like to try and keep page clicks down to a minimum when a user is looking for pages.
But as I said, doing it either way is fine and many sites do, below are some examples:
Same linking architecture:
Main site: http://www.overstock.com/
Blog: http://www.overstock.com/blogsDifferent linking architecture:
Main Site: http://www.tripadvisor.com/
Blog: http://blog.tripadvisor.com/
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Stub category pages (dupe warning)
Hi I have a number of highly ranked category pages. However, at times these contain no products for a few weeks, etc. They are being flagged as duplicate content as they are just stub pages when they have no products, with the same "No products found" message. I don't want to risk 'noindex' ing the pages though - because as soon as they have products in, they become valuable pages and I would hate to lose a good ranking. Should I just leave them as-is and ignore the dupe warnings?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | benseb0 -
My blog's categories are winning over my landing pages, what to do?
Hi My blogs categories for the ecommerce site are by subject and are similar to the product landing pages. Example Domain.com/laptops that sells laptops Domain.com/blog/laptops that shows news and articles on laptops Within the blog posts the links of anchor laptop are to the store. What to do? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet1 -
URL Value: Menu Links vs Body Content Links
Hi All, I'm a little confused. I have read a number of articles from authority sites that give mixed signals over the importance of menu links vs body content links. It is suggested that whilst all menu links spread link juice equally, Google does not see them as favourably. Inserting a link within the body will add more link juice value to the desired page. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch0 -
Link juice site structure?
If we have a top nav with contact us, about us, delivery, FAQ, Gallery, how to order ect but none of these we want to rank and then we have the usual left hand nav.are we wasting juice with the top nav and would we be better either removing it and putting them further down the page or consolidating them and adding an extra products tab so the product pages are first.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
"Category" word in URLs of blog is it SEO Friendly URL ??
Hello respected community members, I saw many times that "Category" word comes in URL of blog. So my que is that is this negative for SEO or Positive. & if we don't wanna to come CATEGORY in URL how can we remove while URL Optimization ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sourabhrana390 -
How important is the HTML structure for on-page/on-site SEO?
To be more specific, say a page layout has Header, Body, Left Sidebar, Footer sections. Which layout from the following options is more SEO-friendly? Header > Body > Right Sidebar > Footer Body > Header > Right Sidebar > Footer Does it make a big difference to code HTML so that the the copy of the body appears in front of all other sections when spiders crawl a website? Is it worth taking extra steps to make this happen? I am asking this question because our site has a header navigation with a lot of dropdown menus. So I assume that this is "noise" for spiders as it pushes the main content of the page down. Please bear in mind that the question is more geared towards how search engine see the page rather than how it appears to the end user as layout can be controlled by CSS.This question also assumes that all other on-site SEO best practices are followed for both options.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Saugar0 -
SEO Penalties for Splitting Page for Two Store Locations
Hello fellow SEO'ers! I have a question regarding the overall SEO implications of using a single page to describe the services/products offered at two different locations. The locations are in two different states/cities. I have tried to explain to the client that I working with that this is essentially splitting the page in two from a search ranking perspective. I have a feeling that Google sees this page as partially dedicated to one city, and partly to another... meaning that it won't rank as well as it could for either city. Is my thinking correct? Seems logical. The client has done this site-wide for every service/product that they offer in their facilities. I'm offering some title/description recommendations for the entire site right now, and I'm going back and forth with myself whether to include the city names in the titles and descriptions at all. Let me know what you smart folks think. I appreciate it. Sam
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | theBREWROOM0 -
Is there an optimal ratio of external links to a page vs internal links originating at that page ?
I understand that multiple links fro a site dilute link juice. I also understand that external links to a specific page with relevant anchortext helps ranking. I wonder if there is an ideal ratioof tgese two items
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Apluswhs0